Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, July 20, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
A new heaven and a new earth. When I try to imagine what this might be like, I keep coming back to C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle when at the end, as the heroes fly through the new Narnia the cry keeps going up “Higher up and farther in!” and there are new worlds upon new worlds in which all is as it was meant to be at its creation. It’s an exhilarating image, honestly, and one that gives me so much hope for this planet upon which we have visited so much irreparable harm—species extinctions, habitat destruction, climate change, pervasive pollution, and on and on. Not to mention the harm humans visit on one another—war, greed, oppression, you name it. All of this will pass away. All of this will be peeled back to the beginning of time when everything was exactly as God intended, and we will enjoy the unadulterated beauty of creation for all eternity. I, for one, can’t wait. But, of course, that’s all any of us can do.
How do I envision the redemption of creation?
